Commencement of a Prophecy
by Walks-in-Shadows
Summary: What if Harry wasn't born to James and Lily Potter, but the prophecy was triggered with him anyway? AU that parallels canon. Warnings for multiple character death and minor character death, but nothing very graphic.


Commencement of a Prophecy.

It was the thirty-first of July, 1980, and Lord Voldemort's heart felt like it was going to burst with immense happiness and pride. He held his hour old son in his arms, and the corpse of the woman who had been the surrogate lay rapidly cooling on the bed in front of him, an expression of shocked terror stretched across her once pretty and still flushed features.

"Now, Julianos," the evil wizard said as he walked from the room and into another one, "let's see if my spells work as designed, hmm?"

He laid his child in the cot in a nursery that was decorated with brightly coloured storybook characters dancing and chasing each other across the walls, and then pointed his wand at the baby before saying, "Imperio!"

Instead of grabbing at the bars of the cot as his father wished him to, Julianos merely yawned and started to fall asleep, filling the man with happiness as the curse failed as designed. However, there were two more to test.

Again, Voldemort pointed his wand at his son, this time uttering, "Crucio!" but Julianos slept on undisturbed, once more filling the adult wizard with delight. Now came the ultimate trial. Voldemort pointed his wand a third time, and for the second time that day, spoke the words of the killing curse. A sickly green light shot out of his wand towards the sleeping child, only to dissipate harmlessly against him, causing Voldemort to chuckle soundlessly as it was confirmed that the Servo Prosapia he had integrated into his spells worked as designed and that the spy he suspected was amongst his followers would never be able to use them to take the only family he had away from him. Chuckling once more, Voldemort left the nursery and quietly closed the door before making arrangements for the cadaver of Julianos' birth mother to be removed from the guest room. He would turn it into an inferius once he'd had some rest. First though, he required sleep.

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In December of 1980, Voldemort strode back and forth in Julianos' nursery, fury rising within him. He had only gone out for a few hours to hear about the boy who best fit the prophecy that one of his Death Eaters, Severus Snape, had informed him of the previous year, and when he'd come back, his house-elves had fearfully related a tale about aurors storming the place and _abducting_ his son! Well, now it was time to make a new plan, one which would ensure the death of the boy who threatened his power, as well as the return of Julianos to his rightful home. It would probably take some time, but Lord Voldemort _would_ have his child back, one way or another!

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On the last Saturday of October in 1981, Voldemort appeared in Godric's Hollow with a pop of displaced air, determination clear in his eyes. He would retrieve Julianos, then get him settled back in at home before making the final plans for the elimination of the threat to his power. His tentative plans were firm in his head, but they needed something of a flourish. Something more than the ironic fact that the boy would be murdered on his second birthday, the thirtieth of July, 1982. No, that was a piece of brilliance, all right, but there also needed to be something to send a lesson to the rest of the Wizarding World not to interfere with Lord Voldemort. After all, losing Julianos once was quite enough, he did not wish to lose him a second time.

Voldemort carried on walking until he stood outside the house of the Potters, the aurors who, as a married couple with no children of their own, had been selected to raise Julianos. The adoption paperwork that had been brought to the dark wizard by one of his foremost Death Eaters, Lucius Malfoy, also stated that they had had the gall to change his name while adopting him. Well, it would soon be changed back, Voldemort determined as he entered the house. Julianos Alderon Riddle would soon retake his rightful place as his father's heir.

As James Potter saw who had entered his home, he cried out, "Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off -" and Voldemort took in a woman running up the stairs in the hallway.

Raising his wand, Voldemort spoke the phrase that was the last one the victims of it ever heard, and the auror fell to the floor with the same expression on his face that Julianos' mother had had on hers. Once Potter was dead, Voldemort headed after the man's wife, spotting her just as she entered a room and closed the door, locking it firmly behind her. As the evil man reached the door, he could feel the multiple warding spells that were on it, and he tore them down with a single slashing movement of his wand before a powerful alohomora unlocked the door. Voldemort barged into the room the door had kept closed, cackling in a high pitch as he did so, then faced Lily Potter as she stood over the cot in which her adversary could see a child of identical age to Julianos. Admittedly, the boy did not look as he once had, but his father put that down to the amount of time that had passed since he had last seen his son.

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!" the female auror had the audacity to implore, and Lord Voldemort glared at her.

"Stand aside, you silly girl… Stand aside now."

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead -"

"I do not know what you have been told, but believe me when I say that I do not wish to harm the boy."

Either Lily did not hear these words or she didn't believe them, for she continued to plead for 'her' son's life. "Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy…"

Voldemort started laughing shrilly at the woman's vain entreaties, but as she began to scream, he finally lost patience and killed her with the same spell that had taken the life of her husband. Then he stepped over her corpse towards the cot that held his son, smiling when the toddler asked, "Da da?"

The evil wizard reached down to pick up his fifteen-month-old child, then stopped when he felt magic within Julianos that was foreign to his system and saw that the boy's once hazel eyes were now bright green. They had not just _adopted_ him, they had had the temerity to _blood_ adopt him? Now he would have to start again to raise an heir who would grow in power, and this one would have to die so he could never be used against his father.

Thus, filled with rage, Voldemort raised his wand and uttered, "Avada kedavra!"

A sickly green light shot from the tip of the wand towards the toddler sitting up in the cot and cut his forehead, causing him to burst into high pitched wails of pain and fright. Then, as the light of the spell turned and shot back towards its caster, he only had time to laugh before he was forcibly ripped from his body, shrieking with the rage and sense of irony that overwhelmed him. The Potters had joined the Order of the Phoenix and refused Voldemort's offer of becoming Death Eaters before being a part of the group of aurors that had taken his son; and while Julianos had not actually been born to them, the blood adoption made it so that he might as well have been. Also, the child's date of birth made him a far more suitable subject of the prophecy Snape had related than the Longbottom boy. The last day of the seventh month was much closer to its 'death' than the penultimate one.

As the wraith that Voldemort now was fled from the newly ruined house in Godric's Hollow, he wondered just how much of the prophecy his spy had missed. And just a few minutes later, Harry James Potter, formerly Julianos Alderon Riddle, sat amidst the rubble in the second of his former homes, wailing up at the black bearded giant of a man who picked the boy up so he could take him to the man who would leave him on his relatives' doorstep, there to know nothing but emotional abuse, physical abuse, and neglect for nearly ten years. Love, when it finally came, would be something he would accept without question.

Copyright © 2012 Romersa's Protégé. Individuals and groups are free to copy and share this work for non-commercial purposes. All other rights reserved.


End file.
